December 21, 2011, 12:39 PM ·
Disneyland today released a video snippet of ride testing for Mater's Junkyard Jamboree, one of the three new rides coming to Cars Land at Disney California Adventure this spring/summer.

As you can see from the video, Mater's really appears to be a basic spinner ride, with some whipping action. How much action will it get? I suppose that will depend upon the weight in each car.

Mater's Junkyard Jamboree looks to be a fairly low capacity attraction, putting through a few hundred people per hour, at best. But the big attraction in the Cars Land will be the much higher capacity Radiator Springs Racers - and if it turns out anything like Journey to the Center of the Earth at Tokyo DisneySea, which uses the same ride system, expect Radiator Springs Racers to be a huge, huge it. I'll write more about Radiator Springs Racers during Tokyo DisneySea Week on Theme Park Insider, starting Monday.

December 21, 2011 at 3:03 PM ·
Journey to the Center of the Earth is one of the best Disney rides I've been on. If Radiator Springs Racers is anything like it, I may have to schedule a trip to the west coast just to ride it at DCA and the new Transformers ride at USH.

I guess I'm probably due for a revisit to Disneyland. It has only been about 40 years since I was last there.

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December 21, 2011 at 5:02 PM ·
So it's like the scrambler meets the tilt o whirl?

December 21, 2011 at 9:01 PM ·
From the looks of it, the ride will change speeds throughout the ride(slow at beginning and end, fast in between) like scramblers. I think the ride will be a great thrill with differing experiences. Disney isn't putting in that much $ for nothing. They're making a high quality, never before seen ride(err...highly themed spinner to the next level).

December 21, 2011 at 11:27 PM ·
The main purpose of this ride is as a distraction to draw some people away from the queue for Radiator Springs Racers. It's like when parks put characters in the entrance plaza at park opening to lure some visitors from going to the rides right away. It's just operational load balancing. If it turns out to be a halfway decent ride, then bonus. If not, well, if its queue is filled then it did its job.

December 22, 2011 at 5:37 AM ·
This ride should make Francis Boogie redundant in the neighboring Bug's Land. Hope Francis goes bye-bye and is replaced by something better. I'd like to see Tuck N Roll also leave opening up space for a revamped Heimlich with a dark ride element through the ants' underground colony. Heimlich wouldn't be a bad ride if redone and made longer.

December 22, 2011 at 7:06 AM ·
Keep in mind that the intended audience for the ride is kids, who will eat this up. It will probably have about the same capacity as Dumbo, and will appeal to the same age group, those kids that are too small to go on Radiator Springs Racers. My guess is that this is testing at full speed, and that the whip action is more pronounced on the ride than what is apparent in the video. You have to admit, its a darned cute ride, and well-themed. The other ride that will be opening will be the new version of the old Tomorrowland Flying Saucers, which went away when I was a kid, too small to ride them. Now, after almost fifty years, I may actually get the chance to experience them, albeit as Luigi's Flying Tires. Yeah, its a form of bumper car, but its a freakin' hovercraft bumper car. How cool is that?

December 22, 2011 at 9:49 AM ·
Perception. Just because it doesn't look fast doesn't mean it won't be fun. I mean, last time you saw a car moving at 70 mph, it probably looked slow. But if that car was in a neighborhood? Not that I condone that kind of driving, but you get my point.

Besides, it looks like it's a kid's ride. Sometimes I feel that parents will say a ride "sucks" and the kid doesn't know how to feel about it. They see their parents didn't like the ride so they start not liking it imitating them. Sometimes adults need to understand how a child feels. As a rollercoaster fan, Gadget's Go Coaster is incredibly boring to me. But when you see a 5 year old's face light up on that thing? It's priceless.

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December 22, 2011 at 2:19 PM ·
Wait! Are the wheels not spinning? Are the wheels going to spin? If the wheels aren't going to spin, then what the heck is WDI thinking? That kind of kinetic detail makes a dorky flat ride feel loved-on (think of all the whirligigs on Dumbo). On a ride where the wheels are 60% of the ride vehicle, it just comes off as some cheap Italian carnival ride.

Also consider that a lot of the target audience of Cars is under the age of 10. I've never met an adult who is a fan of Cars but my cousins who are under 5 love it. And they're definitely not old/tall enough for Radiator Springs Racers.